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Install Pulse Secure on Ubuntu 20.04.md

To install Pulse Secure for Ubuntu 20.04, it is a bit complicated since the support isn't great.

First, we'll want to go through the form at https://www.pulsesecure.net/trynow/client-download/. You'll get an email with download links to the latest versions of pulse secure. Download the Linux one with the deb file and then you can install it using dpkg from your downloads folder.

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ sudo dpkg -i ps-pulse-linux-[your-pulse-version]-ubuntu-debian-64-bit-installer.deb

Now, we'll want to go into the pulse directory and install the dependencies. We update the shell script file first to recognize Ubuntu 20.

$ cd /usr/local/pulse/
$ sudo sed -i "s/UBUNTU_VER\ \=\ 18\ \]/& \|\|\ [\ \$UBUNTU_VER\ \=\ 20 \]/" PulseClient_x86_64.sh
$ ./PulseClient_x86_64.sh install_dependency_packages
$ sudo apt-get install libenchant1c2a

Next, we'll want to create an extras and debs folder inside the pulse folder.

$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/pulse/extra
$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/pulse/debs

Then we'll want to download the following debs into /usr/local/pulse/debs/.

$ cd /usr/local/pulse/debs
$ sudo wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu60_60.2-3ubuntu3_amd64.deb
$ sudo wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/w/webkitgtk/libjavascriptcoregtk-1.0-0_2.4.11-3ubuntu3_amd64.deb
$ sudo wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/w/webkitgtk/libwebkitgtk-1.0-0_2.4.11-3ubuntu3_amd64.deb

Next we will extract the debs into the extras folder.

$ cd /usr/local/pulse/extra
$ sudo dpkg -x /usr/local/pulse/debs/libicu60_60.2-3ubuntu3_amd64.deb .
$ sudo dpkg -x /usr/local/pulse/debs/libjavascriptcoregtk-1.0-0_2.4.11-3ubuntu3_amd64.deb .
$ sudo dpkg -x /usr/local/pulse/debs/libwebkitgtk-1.0-0_2.4.11-3ubuntu3_amd64.deb .

Then we'll want to add the library path to our shell startup file and for convience, the pulse secure command can be aliased as well. Likely .bashrc if you're using bash or .zshrc if zsh.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/pulse/extra/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/
alias vpn=/usr/local/pulse/pulseUi

By default, pulse secure will have its output go directly to the terminal from which you ran it from. If you'd like to keep those separate and detach the program from the terminal when you run it, you can instead create the following alias: alias vpn="nohup /usr/local/pulse/pulseUi >| ~/.pulse_secure/pulse/pulse-output.log &" (thanks @GreyCardinal!)

Lastly, we want to make sure to source that same shell startup file e.g. source ~/.bashrc so the changes are loaded. We can then startup the client.

$ vpn

If you get disconnected and the GUI is stuck in a "reconnecting" status, you can use pulsesvc -K to kill the process.

Resources

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